THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

OF 
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 


founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


THE    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

OF 

ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Wood  engraving  by  Timothy  Cole  from  an  ambrotype  taken 
for  Marcus  L.  Ward  in  Springfield,  111.,  May  20, 
i860,  two  days  after  Lincoln's  nom- 
ination for  President. 


THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

if 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


New  York 
Francis  D.  Tandy  Company 


Selected  from   "  Complete  Works  of  Abraham 

Lincoln."     Copyright,  1894,  by  John 

G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay 


Copyright,  1905,  by 
FRANCIS    D.    TANDY 


i 


CONTENTS 


Autobiography,  June,    i860    . 
Memorandum  Given  to  Hicks 

s 

Sketch  Written  for  Fell 
Speech  at  Springfield  . 
Lincoln's  Writings 


PAGE 

3 
3C 
31 
39 
65 


AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 


A  Short  Autobiography, 
written  in  June,  i860,  at 
the  Request  of  a  Friend 
to  use  in  preparing  a  pop- 
ULAR Campaign  Biography 
in  the  Election  of  that 
Year. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born 
February  12,  1809,  then  in 
Hardin,  now  in  the  more  recent- 
ly formed  county  of  La  Rue, 
Kentucky.  His  father,  Thomas, 
and  grandfather,  Abraham, 
were  born  in  Rockingham 
County,  Virginia,  whither  their 
ancestors  had  come  from  Berks 
County,  Pennsylvania.  His  line- 
age has  been  traced  no  farther 
back  than  this.  The  family 
were  originally  Quakers,  though 


4  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

in  later  times  they  have  fallen 
away  from  the  peculiar  habits 
of  that  people.  The  grand- 
father, Abraham,  had  four 
brothers  —  Isaac,  Jacob,  John, 
and  Thomas.  So  far  as  known, 
the  descendants  of  Jacob  and 
John  are  still  in  Virginia.  Isaac 
went  to  a  place  near  where  Vir- 
ginia, North  Carolina,  and  Ten- 
nessee join;  and  his  descendants 
are  in  that  region.  Thomas 
came  to  Kentucky,  and  after 
many  years  died  there,  whence 
his  descendants  went  to  Mis- 
souri. Abraham,  grandfather  of 
the  subject  of  this  sketch,  came 
to  Kentucky,  and  was  killed  by 
Indians  about  the  year  1784. 
He  left  a  widow,  three  sons,  and 
two  daughters.  The  eldest  son, 
Mordecai,  remained  in  Ken- 
tucky till  late  in  life,  when  he 
removed    to    Hancock    County, 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  5 

Illinois,  where  soon  after  he 
died,  and  where  several  of  his 
descendants  still  remain.  The 
second  son,  Josiah,  removed  at 
an  early  day  to  a  place  on  Blue 
River,  now  within  Hancock 
County,  Indiana,  but  no  recent 
information  of  him  or  his  family 
has  been  obtained.  The  eldest 
sister,  Mary,  married  Ralph 
Crume,  and  some  of  her  de- 
scendants are  now  known  to  be 
in  Breckinridge  County,  Ken- 
tucky. The  second  sister, 
Nancy,  married  William  Brum- 
field,  and  her  family  are  not 
known  to  have  left  Kentucky, 
but  there  is  no  recent  informa- 
tion from  them.  Thomas,  the 
youngest  son,  and  father  of  the 
present  subject,  by  the  early 
death  of  his  father  and  very 
narrow  circumstances  of  his 
mother,   even  in  childhood  was 


6  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

a  wandering  laboring-boy  and 
grew  up  literally  without  educa- 
tion. He  never  did  more  in  the 
way  of  writing  than  to  bungling- 
ly  write  his  own  name.  Before 
he  was  grown  he  passed  one 
year  as  a  hired  hand  with  his 
uncle  Isaac  on  Watauga,  a 
branch  of  the  Holston  River. 
Getting  back  into  Kentucky,  and 
having  reached  his  twenty- 
eighth  year,  he  married  Nancy 
Hanks  —  mother  of  the  present 
subject — in  the  year  1806.  She 
also  was  born  in  Virginia;  and 
relatives  of  hers  of  the  name  of 
Hanks,  and  of  other  names,  now 
reside  in  Coles,  in  Macon,  and 
in  Adams  counties,  Illinois,  and 
also  in  Iowa.  The  present  sub- 
ject has  no  brother  or  sister  of 
the  whole  or  half  blood.  He 
had  a  sister,  older  than  himself, 
who   was   grown   and  married, 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  J 

but  died  many  years  ago,  leav- 
ing no  child;  also  a  brother, 
younger  than  himself,  who  died 
in  infancy.  Before  leaving  Ken- 
tucky, he  and  his  sister  were 
sent,  for  short  periods,  to  A  B 
C  schools,  the  first  kept  by  Za- 
chariah  Riney,  and  the  second  by 
Caleb  Hazel. 

At  this  time  his  father  re- 
sided on  Knob  Creek,  on  the 
road  from  Bardstown,  Ken- 
tucky, to  Nashville,  Tennessee, 
at  a  point  three  or  three  and  a 
half  miles  south  or  southwest  of 
Atherton's  Ferry,  on  the  Rolling 
Fork.  From  this  place  he  re- 
moved to  what  is  now  Spencer 
County,  Indiana,  in  the  autumn 
of  1816,  Abraham  then  being  in 
his  eighth  year.  This  removal 
was  partly  on  account  of  slavery, 
but  chiefly  on  account  of  the  dif- 
ficulty in  land  titles  in  Kentucky. 


8  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

He  settled  in  an  unbroken  forest, 
and  the  clearing  away  of  surplus 
wood  was  the  great  task  ahead. 
Abraham,  though  very  young, 
was  large  for  his  age,  and  had 
an  ax  put  into  his  hands  at  once; 
and  from  that  till  within  his 
twenty-third  year  he  was  almost 
constantly  handling  that  most 
useful  instrument  —  less,  of 
course,  in  plowing  and  harvest- 
ing seasons.  At  this  place  Abra- 
ham took  an  early  start  as  a 
hunter,  which  was  never  much 
improved  afterwards.  A  few 
days  before  the  completion  of  his 
eighth  year,  in  the  absence  of  his 
father,  a  flock  of  wild  turkeys 
approached  the  new  log  cabin, 
and  Abraham  with  a  rifle-gun, 
standing  inside,  shot  through  a 
crack  and  killed  one  of  them. 
He  has  never  since  pulled  a  trig- 
ger on  any  larger  game.    In  the 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  9 

autumn  of  1 8 1 8  his  mother  died ; 
and  a  year  afterwards  his  father 
married  Mrs.  Sally  Johnston, 
at  Elizabethtown,  Kentucky,  a 
widow  with  three  children  of 
her  first  marriage.  She  proved 
a  good  and  kind  mother  to  Abra- 
ham, and  is  still  living  in  Coles 
County,  Illinois.  There  were 
no  children  of  this  second  mar- 
riage. His  father's  residence 
continued  at  the  same  place  in 
Indiana  till  1830.  While  here 
Abraham  went  to  A  B  C  schools 
by  littles,  kept  successively  by 
Andrew  Crawford,  Swee- 
ney, and  Azel  W.  Dorsey.  He 
does  not  remember  any  other. 
The  family  of  Mr.  Dorsey  now 
resides  in  Schuyler  County,  Illi- 
nois. Abraham  now  thinks  that 
the  aggregate  of  all  his  school- 
ing did  not  amount  to  one  year. 
He  was  never  in  a   college  or 


IO         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

academy  as  a  student,  and  never 
inside  of  a  college  or  acad- 
emy building  till  since  he  had 
a  law  license.  What  he  has 
in  the  way  of  education  he  has 
picked  up.  After  he  was  twenty- 
three  and  had  separated  from 
his  father,  he  studied  Eng- 
lish grammar  —  imperfectly,  of 
course,  but  so  as  to  speak  and 
write  as  well  as  he  now  does. 
He  studied  and  nearly  mastered 
the  six  books  of  Euclid  since  he 
was  a  member  of  Congress.  He 
regrets  his  want  of  education, 
and  does  what  he  can  to  supply 
the  want.  In  his  tenth  year  he 
was  kicked  by  a  horse,  and  ap- 
parently killed  for  a  time. 
When  he  was  nineteen,  still  re- 
siding in  Indiana,  he  made  his 
first  trip  upon  a  flatboat  to  New 
Orleans.  He  was  a  hired  hand 
merely,  and  he  and  a  son  of  the 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  II 

owner,  without  other  assistance, 
made  the  trip.  The  nature  of 
part  of  the  "  cargo-load,"  as  it 
was  called,  made  it  necessary  for 
them  to  linger  and  trade  along 
the  sugar-coast;  and  one  night 
they  were  attacked  by  seven 
negroes  with  intent  to  kill  and 
rob  them.  They  were  hurt  some 
in  the  melee,  but  succeeded  in 
driving  the  negroes  from  the 
boat,  and  then  ucut  cable," 
"  weighed  anchor,"  and  left. 

March  i,  1830,  Abraham 
having  just  completed  his  twen- 
ty-first year,  his  father  and 
family,  with  the  families  of  the 
two  daughters  and  sons-in-law 
of  his  stepmother,  left  the  old 
homestead  in  Indiana  and  came 
to  Illinois.  Their  mode  of  con- 
veyance was  wagons  drawn  by 
ox-teams,  and  Abraham  drove 
one  of  the  teams.    They  reached 


12         ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

the  county  of  Macon,  and 
stopped  there  some  time  within 
the  same  month  of  March.  His 
father  and  family  settled  a  new 
place  on  the  north  side  of  the 
Sangamon  River,  at  the  junction 
of  the  timber-land  and  prairie, 
about  ten  miles  westerly  from 
Decatur.  Here  they  built  a  log 
cabin,  into  which  they  removed, 
and  made  sufficient  of  rails  to 
fence  ten  acres  of  ground,  fenced 
and  broke  the  ground,  and  raised 
a  crop  of  sown  corn  upon  it  the 
same  year.  These  are,  or  are 
supposed  to  be,  the  rails  about 
which  so  much  is  being  said  just 
now,  though  these  are  far  from 
being  the  first  or  only  rails  ever 
made  by  Abraham. 

The  sons-in-law  were  tempo- 
rarily settled  in  other  places  in  the 
county.  In  the  autumn  all  hands 
were  greatly  afflicted  with  ague 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  13 

and  fever,  to  which  they  had  not 
been  used,  and  by  which  they 
were  greatly  discouraged,  so 
much  so  that  they  determined  on 
leaving  the  county.  They  re- 
mained, however,  through  the 
succeeding  winter,  which  was  the 
winter  of  the  very  celebrated 
"  deep  snow  "  of  Illinois.  Dur- 
ing that  winter  Abraham,  to- 
gether with  his  stepmother's  son, 
John  D.  Johnston,  and  John 
Hanks,  yet  residing  in  Macon 
County,  hired  themselves  to 
Denton  Offutt  to  take  a  flatboat 
from  Beardstown,  Illinois,  to 
New  Orleans ;  and  for  that  pur- 
pose were  to  join  him — Offutt — 
at  Springfield,  Illinois,  so  soon 
as  the  snow  should  go  off.  When 
it  did  go  off,  which  was  about 
the  first  of  March,  1831,  the 
county  was  so  flooded  as  to  make 
traveling  by  land  impracticable; 


14         ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

to  obviate  which  difficulty  they 
purchased  a  large  canoe,  and 
came  down  the  Sangamon  River 
in  it.  This  is  the  time  and  the 
manner  of  Abraham's  first  en- 
trance into  Sangamon  County. 
They  found  Offutt  at  Spring- 
field, but  learned  from  him  that 
he  had  failed  in  getting  a  boat 
at  Beardstown.  This  led  to  their 
hiring  themselves  to  him  for 
twelve  dollars  per  month  each, 
and  getting  the  timber  out  of  the 
trees  and  building  a  boat  at  Old 
Sangamon  town  on  the  Sanga- 
mon River,  seven  miles  north- 
west of  Springfield,  which  boat 
they  took  to  New  Orleans,  sub- 
stantially upon  the  old  contract. 
During  this  boat-enterprise 
acquaintance  with  Offutt,  who 
was  previously  an  entire  stran- 
ger, he  conceived  a  liking  for 
Abraham,      and     believing     he 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  1 5 

could  turn  him  to  account,  he 
contracted  with  him  to  act  as 
clerk  for  him,  on  his  return  from 
New  Orleans,  in  charge  of  a 
store  and  mill  at  New  Salem, 
then  in  Sangamon,  now  in  Me- 
nard County.  Hanks  had  not 
gone  to  New  Orleans,  but  hav- 
ing a  family,  and  being  likely  to 
be  detained  from  home  longer 
than  at  first  expected,  had 
turned  back  from  St.  Louis.  He 
is  the  same  John  Hanks  who  now 
engineers  the  "  rail  enterprise  ' 
at  Decatur,  and  is  a  first  cousin 
to  Abraham's  mother.  Abra- 
ham's father,  with  his  own  fam- 
ily and  others  mentioned,  had,  in 
pursuance  of  their  intention,  re- 
moved from  Macon  to  Coles 
County.  John  D.  Johnston,  the 
stepmother's  son,  went  to  them, 
and  Abraham  stopped  indefinite- 
ly and  for  the  first  time,  as  it 


1 6         ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

were,  by  himself  at  New  Salem, 
before  mentioned.  This  was  in 
July,  1 83 1.  Here  he  rapidly 
made  acquaintances  and  friends. 
In  less  than  a  year  Offutt's  busi- 
ness was  failing — had  almost 
failed — when  the  Black  Hawk 
war  of  1832  broke  out.  Abra- 
ham joined  a  volunteer  com- 
pany, and,  to  his  own  surprise, 
was  elected  captain  of  it.  He 
says  he  has  not  since  had  any 
success  in  life  which  gave  him  so 
much  satisfaction.  He  went  to 
the  campaign,  served  near  three 
months,  met  the  ordinary  hard- 
ships of  such  an  expedition,  but 
was  in  no  battle.  He  now  owns, 
in  Iowa,  the  land  upon  which 
his  own  warrants  for  the  service 
were  located.  Returning  from 
the  campaign,  and  encouraged 
by  his  great  popularity  among 
his  immediate  neighbors,  he  the 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  1 7 

same  year  ran  for  the  legisla- 
ture, and  was  beaten — his  own 
precinct,  however,  casting  its 
votes  277  for  and  7  against  him 
— and  that,  too,  while  he  was  an 
avowed  Clay  man,  and  the  pre- 
cinct the  autumn  afterwards  giv- 
ing a  majority  of  1 15  to  General 
Jackson  over  Mr.  Clay.  This 
was  the  only  time  Abraham  was 
ever  beaten  on  a  direct  vote  of 
the  people.  He  was  now  with- 
out means  and  out  of  business, 
but  was  anxious  to  remain  with 
his  friends  who  had  treated  him 
with  so  much  generosity,  espe- 
cially as  he  had  nothing  else- 
where to  go  to.  He  studied 
what  he  should  do — thought  of 
learning  the  blacksmith  trade — 
thought  of  trying  to  study  law — 
rather  thought  he  could  not  suc- 
ceed at  that  without  a  better 
education.    Before  long,  strange- 


I  8         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ly  enough,  a  man  offered  to  sell, 
and  did  sell,  to  Abraham  and 
another  as  poor  as  himself,  an 
old  stock  of  goods,  upon  credit. 
They  opened  as  merchants;  and 
he  says  that  was  the  store.  Of 
course  they  did  nothing  but  get 
deeper  and  deeper  in  debt.  He 
was  appointed  postmaster  at 
New  Salem — the  office  being  too 
insignificant  to  make  his  politics 
an  objection.  The  store  winked 
out.  The  surveyor  of  Sanga- 
mon offered  to  depute  to  Abra- 
ham that  portion  of  his  work 
which  was  within  his  part  of  the 
County.  He  accepted,  procured 
a  compass  and  chain,  studied 
Flint  and  Gibson  a  little,  and 
went  at  it.  This  procured 
bread,  and  kept  soul  and  body 
together.  The  election  of  1834 
came,  and  he  was  then  elected 
to  the  legislature  by  the  highest 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  1 9 

vote  cast  for  any  candidate. 
Major  John  T.  Stuart,  then  in 
full  practice  of  the  law,  was  also 
elected.  During  the  canvass,  in 
a  private  conversation  he  encour- 
aged Abraham  [to]  study  law. 
After  the  election  he  borrowed 
books  of  Stuart,  took  them  home 
with  him,  and  went  at  it  in  good 
earnest.  He  studied  with  no- 
body. He  still  mixed  in  the 
surveying  to  pay  board  and 
clothing  bills.  When  the  legis- 
lature met,  the  law-books  were 
dropped,  but  were  taken  up 
again  at  the  end  of  the  session. 
He  was  reelected  in  1836,  1838, 
and  1840.  In  the  autumn  of 
1836  he  obtained  a  law  license, 
and  on  April  15,  1837,  removed 
to  Springfield,  and  commenced 
the  practice — his  old  friend 
Stuart  taking  him  into  partner- 
ship.   March  3,  1837,  by  a  pro- 


20         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

test  entered  upon  the  "  Illinois 
House  Journal  "  of  that  date,  at 
pages  817  and  818,  Abraham, 
with  Dan  Stone,  another  repre- 
sentative of  Sangamon,  briefly 
defined  his  position  on  the  slav- 
ery question;  and  so  far  as  it 
goes,  it  was  then  the  same  that 
it  is  now.  The  protest  is  as 
follows : 

"  Resolutions  upon  the  subject 
of  domestic  slavery  having 
passed  both  branches  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  at  its  present  ses- 
sion, the  undersigned  hereby 
protest  against  the  passage  of 
the  same. 

"  They  believe  that  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery  is  founded  on 
both  injustice  and  bad  policy,  but 
that  the  promulgation  of  Aboli- 
tion doctrines  tends  rather  to  in- 
crease than  abate  its  evils. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  21 

"  They  believe  that  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  has  no 
power  under  the  Constitution  to 
interfere  with  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  the  different  States. 

"  They  believe  that  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  has  the 
power,  under  the  Constitution, 
to  abolish  slavery  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia,  but  that  the 
power  ought  not  to  be  exercised 
unless  at  the  request  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  District. 

"  The  difference  between  these 

opinions  and  those  contained  in 

the    above    resolutions    is    their 

reason  for  entering  this  protest. 

"  Dan  Stone, 

"  A.  Lincoln, 

"  Representatives  from  the 
County  of  Sangamon." 

In  1838  and  1840,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's  party  voted   for   him   as 


22         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Speaker,  but  being  in  the  minor- 
ity he  was  not  elected.  After 
1840  he  declined  a  reelection  to 
the  legislature.  He  was  on  the 
Harrison  electoral  ticket  in  1840, 
and  on  that  of  Clay  in  1844,  and 
spent  much  time  and  labor  in 
both  those  canvasses.  In  No- 
vember, 1842,  he  was  married  to 
Mary,  daughter  of  Robert  S. 
Todd,  of  Lexington,  Kentucky. 
They  have  three  living  children, 
all  sons,  one  born  in  1843,  one 
in  1850,  and  one  in  1853.  They 
lost  one,  who  was  born  in  1846. 
In  1846  he  was  elected  to  the 
lower  House  of  Congress,  and 
served  one  term  only,  commenc- 
ing in  December,  1847,  and  end- 
ing with  the  inauguration  of 
General  Taylor,  in  March,  1849. 
All  the  battles  of  the  Mexican 
war  had  been  fought  before  Mr. 
Lincoln   took   his   seat   in    Con- 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  23 

gress,  but  the  American  army 
was  still  in  Mexico,  and  the 
treaty  of  peace  was  not  fully  and 
formally  ratified  till  the  June 
afterwards.  Much  has  been  said 
of  his  course  in  Congress  in  re- 
gard to  this  war.  A  careful  ex- 
amination of  the  "  Journal  "  and 
"  Congressional  Globe  "  shows 
that  he  voted  for  all  the  supply 
measures  that  came  up,  and  for 
all  the  measures  in  any  way  fa- 
vorable to  the  officers,  soldiers, 
and  their  families,  who  con- 
ducted the  war  through :  with  the 
exception  that  some  of  these 
measures  passed  without  yeas 
and  nays,  leaving  no  record  as 
to  how  particular  men  voted. 
The  "  Journal  "  and  "  Globe  " 
also  show  him  voting  that  the 
war  was  unnecessarily  and  un- 
constitutionally begun  by  the 
President  of  the  United  States. 


24         ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

This  is  the  language  of  Mr. 
Ashmun's  amendment,  for  which 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  nearly  or  quite 
all  other  Whigs  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  voted. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  reasons  for  the 
opinion  expressed  by  this  vote 
were  briefly  that  the  President 
had  sent  General  Taylor  into  an 
inhabited  part  of  the  country 
belonging  to  Mexico,  and  not  to 
the  United  States,  and  thereby 
had  provoked  the  first  act  of 
hostility,  in  fact  the  commence- 
ment of  the  war;  that  the  place, 
being  the  country  bordering  on 
the  east  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande, 
was  inhabited  by  native  Mexi- 
cans born  there  under  the  Mexi- 
can Government,  and  had  never 
submitted  to,  nor  been  con- 
quered by,  Texas  or  the  United 
States,  nor  transferred  to  either 
by  treaty;  that  although  Texas 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  2§ 

claimed  the  Rio  Grande  as  her 
boundary,  Mexico  had  never  rec- 
ognized it,  and  neither  Texas 
nor  the  United  States  had  ever 
enforced  it;  that  there  was  a 
broad  desert  between  that  and 
the  country  over  which  Texas 
had  actual  control;  that  the  coun- 
try where  hostilities  commenced, 
having  once  belonged  to  Mexico,, 
must  remain  so  until  it  was 
somehow  legally  transferred, 
which  had  never  been  done. 

Mr.  Lincoln  thought  the  act 
of  sending  an  armed  force 
among  the  Mexicans  was  unnec- 
essary, inasmuch  as  Mexico  was 
in  no  way  molesting  or  menacing 
the  United  States  or  the  people 
thereof;  and  that  it  was  uncon- 
stitutional, because  the  power  of 
levying  war  is  vested  in  Con- 
gress, and  not  in  the  President. 
He  thought  the  principal  motive 


l6         ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

for  the  act  was  to  divert  public 
attention  from  the  surrender  of 
"  Fifty-four,  forty,  or  fight "  to 
Great  Britain,  on  the  Oregon 
boundary  question. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  a  can- 
didate for  reelection.  This  was 
determined  upon  and  declared 
before  he  went  to  Washington, 
in  accordance  with  an  under- 
standing among  Whig  friends, 
by  which  Colonel  Hardin  and 
Colonel  Baker  had  each  pre- 
viously served  a  single  term  in 
this  same  district. 

In  1848,  during  his  term  in 
Congress,  he  advocated  General 
Taylor's  nomination  for  the 
presidency,  in  opposition  to  all 
others,  and  also  took,  an  active 
part  for  his  election  after  his 
nomination,  speaking  a  few 
times  in  Maryland,  near  Wash- 
ington, several  times  in  Massa- 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  2J 

chusetts,  and  canvassing  quite 
fully  his  own  district  in  Illinois, 
which  was  followed  by  a  major- 
ity in  the  district  of  over  fifteen 
hundred  for  General  Taylor. 

Upon  his  return  from  Con- 
gress he  went  to  the  practice  of 
the  law  with  greater  earnestness 
than  ever  before.  In  1852  he 
was  upon  the  Scott  electoral  tic- 
ket, and  did  something  in  the 
way  of  canvassing,  but  owing  to 
the  hopelessness  of  the  cause  in 
Illinois  he  did  less  than  in  pre- 
vious presidential  canvasses. 

In  1854  his  profession  had  al- 
most superseded  the  thought  of 
politics  in  his  mind,  when  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise aroused  him  as  he  had 
never  been  before. 

In  the  autumn  of  that  year  he 
took  the  stump  with  no  broader 
practical  aim  or  object  than  to 


28         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

secure,  if  possible,  the  reelection 
of  Hon.  Richard  Yates  to  Con- 
gress. His  speeches  at  once  at- 
tracted a  more  marked  attention 
than  thev  had  ever  before  done. 
As  the  canvass  proceeded  he  was 
drawn  to  different  parts  of  the 
State  outside  of  Mr.  Yates's  dis- 
trict. He  did  not  abandon  the 
law,  but  gave  his  attention  by 
turns  to  that  and  politics.  The 
State  agricultural  fair  was  at 
Springfield  that  year,  and  Doug- 
las was  announced  to  speak 
there. 

In  the  canvass  of  1856  Mr. 
Lincoln  made  over  fifty  speeches, 
no  one  of  which,  so  far  as  he 
remembers,  was  put  in  print. 
One  of  them  was  made  at  Ga- 
lena, but  Mr.  Lincoln  has  no  rec- 
ollection of  any  part  of  it  being 
printed;  nor  does  he  remember 
whether  in  that  speech  he  said 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  29 

anything  about  a  Supreme  Court 
decision.  He  may  have  spoken 
upon  that  subject,  and  some  of 
the  newspapers  may  have  re- 
ported him  as  saying  what  is 
now  ascribed  to  him;  but  he 
thinks  he  could  not  have  ex- 
pressed himself  as  represented. 


Autobiographical  Memoran- 
dum   GIVEN   TO   THE   ARTIST 

Hicks,  June  14,  i860. 

I  was  born  February  12, 
1809,  in  then  Hardin  County, 
Kentucky,  at  a  point  within  the 
now  county  of  La  Rue,  a  mile, 
or  a  mile  and  a  half,  from  where 
Hodgen's  mill  now  is.  My 
parents  being  dead,  and  my  own 
memory  not  serving,  I  know  no 
means  of  identifying  the  precise 
locality.     It  was  on  Nolin  Creek. 

A.  Lincoln. 

June  14,  i860. 


30 


Autobiographical  Sketch 
Written  for  Jesse  W. 
Fell,  December  20,  1859. 

Springfield,  Dec.  20,  1859. 
J.  W.  Fell,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir:  Herewith  is  a 
little  sketch,  as  you  requested. 
There  is  not  much  of  it,  for  the 
reason,  I  suppose,  that  there  is 
not  much  of  me.  If  anything 
be  made  out  of  it,  I  wish  it  to 
be  modest,  and  not  to  go  beyond 
the  material.  If  it  were  thought 
necessary  to  incorporate  anything 
from  any  of  my  speeches,  I  sup- 
pose there  would  be  no  objec- 
tion. Of  course  it  must  not  ap- 
pear to  have  been  written  by 
myself. 

Yours  very  truly, 

A.  Lincoln. 

31 


32         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

I  was  born  February  12, 
1809,  in  Hardin  County,  Ken- 
tucky. My  parents  were  both 
born  in  Virginia,  of  undistin- 
guished families — second  fami- 
lies, perhaps  I  should  say.  My 
mother,  who  died  in  my  tenth 
year,  was  of  a  family  of  the 
name  of  Hanks,  some  of  whom 
now  reside  in  Adams,  and  others 
in  Macon  County,  Illinois.  My 
paternal  grandfather,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  emigrated  from  Rock- 
ingham County,  Virginia,  to 
Kentucky  about  1781  or  1782, 
where  a  year  or  two  later  he  was 
killed  by  the  Indians,  not  in  bat- 
tle, but  by  stealth,  when  he  was 
laboring  to  open  a  farm  in  the 
forest.  His  ancestors,  who  were 
Quakers,  went  to  Virginia  from 
Berks  County,  Pennsylvania. 
An  effort  to  identify  them  with 
the  New  England  family  of  the 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  ^3 

same  name  ended  in  nothing 
more  definite  than  a  similarity  of 
Christian  names  in  both  families, 
such  as  Enoch,  Levi,  Mordecai, 
Solomon;  Abraham,  and  the 
like. 

My  father,  at  the  death  of  his 
father,  was  but  six  years  of  age, 
and  he  grew  up  literally  without 
education.  He  removed  from 
Kentucky  to  what  is  now  Spen- 
cer County,  Indiana,  in  my 
eighth  year.  We  reached  our 
new  home  about  the  time  the 
State  came  into  the  Union.  It 
was  a  wild  region,  with  many 
bears  and  other  wild  animals 
still  in  the  woods.  There  I  grew 
up.  There  were  some  schools, 
so  called,  but  no  qualification 
was  ever  required  of  a  teacher 
beyond  "  readin',  writin',  and 
cipherin'  "  to  the  rule  of  three. 
If  a  straggler  supposed  to  un- 


34         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

derstand  Latin  happened  to  so- 
journ in  the  neighborhood,  he 
was  looked  upon  as  a  wizard. 
There  was  absolutely  nothing  to 
excite  ambition  for  education. 
Of  course,  when  I  came  of  age 
I  did  not  know  much.  Still, 
somehow,  I  could  read,  write, 
and  cipher  to  the  rule  of  three, 
but  that  was  all.  I  have  not 
been  to  school  since.  The  little 
advance  I  now  have  upon  this 
store  of  education,  I  have  picked 
up  from  time  to  time  under  the 
pressure  of  necessity. 

I  was  raised  to  farm  work, 
which  I  continued  till  I  was 
twenty-two.  At  twenty-one  I 
came  to  Illinois,  Macon  County. 
Then  I  got  to  New  Salem,  at 
that  time  in  Sangamon,  now  in 
Menard  County,  where  I  re- 
mained a  year  as  a  sort  of  clerk 
in    a    store.      Then    came    the 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  2S 

Black  Hawk  war;  and  I  was 
elected  a  captain  of  volunteers,  a 
success  which  gave  me  more 
pleasure  than  any  I  have  had 
since.  I  went  the  campaign, 
was  elated,  ran  for  the  legisla- 
ture the  same  year  (1832),  and 
was  beaten — the  only  time  I  ever 
have  been  beaten  by  the  people. 
The  next  and  three  succeeding 
biennial  elections  I  was  elected 
to  the  legislature.  I  was  not  a 
candidate  afterwards.  During 
this  legislative  period  I  had 
studied  law,  and  removed  to 
Springfield  to  practice  it.  In 
1846  I  was  once  elected  to  the 
lower  House  of  Congress.  Was 
not  a  candidate  for  reelection. 
From  1849  t0  I^54>  DOtn  inclu- 
sive, practiced  law  more  assidu- 
ously than  ever  before.  Always 
a  Whig  in  politics;  and  gener- 
ally   on     the    Whig     electoral 


36         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

tickets,  making  active  canvasses. 
I  was  losing  interest  in  politics 
when  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  aroused  me  again. 
What  I  have  done  since  then  is 
pretty  well  known. 

If  any  personal  description  of 
me  is  thought  desirable,  it  may 
be  said  I  am,  in  height,  six  feet 
four  inches,  nearly ;  lean  in  flesh, 
weighing  on  an  average  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty  pounds;  dark 
complexion,  with  coarse  black 
hair  and  gray  eyes.  No  other 
marks  or  brands  recollected. 
Yours  truly, 
A.  Lincoln. 

Hon.  J.  W.  Fell. 


SPEECH    AT 
SPRINGFIELD 


The  "  House  Divided 
Against  Itself  "  Speech,1 
at  Springfield,   June   16, 

1858. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen 
of  the  Convention:  If  we  could 
first  know  where  we  are,  and 
whither  we  are  tending,  we  could 
better  judge  what  to  do,  and  how 
to  do  it.  We  are  now  far  into 
the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was 
initiated  with  the  avowed  object 
and  confident  promise  of  putting 
an  end  to  slavery  agitation. 
Under  the  operation  of  that  pol- 

1  The  above  speech  was  delivered  at  Springfield, 
111. ,  at  the  close  of  the  Republican  State  Conven- 
tion held  at  that  time  and  place,  and  by  which  Con- 
vention Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  named  as  their  can- 
didate for  United  States  Senator.  Mr.  Douglas 
was  not  present. 

39 


40         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

icy,  that  agitation  has  not  only 
not  ceased,  but  has  constantly 
augmented.  In  my  opinion,  it 
will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall 
have  been  reached  and  passed. 
"  A  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand."  I  believe  this 
Government  cannot  endure  per- 
manently half  slave  and  half 
free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union 
to  be  dissolved;  I  do  not  expect 
the  house  to  fall ;  but  I  do  expect 
it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It 
will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all 
the  other.  Either  the  oppo- 
nents of  slavery  will  arrest  the 
further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it 
where  the  public  mind  shall  rest 
in  the  belief  that  it  is  the  course 
of  ultimate  extinction;  or  its  ad- 
vocates will  push  it  forward  till 
it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in 
all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new, 
North  as  well  as  South. 


SPEECH  41 

Have  we  no  tendency  to  the 
latter  condition? 

Let  anyone  who  doubts  care- 
fully contemplate  that  now  al- 
most complete  legal  combina- 
tion— piece  of  machinery,  so  to 
speak — compounded  of  the  Ne- 
braska doctrine  and  the  Dred 
Scott  decision.  Let  him  con- 
sider, not  only  what  work  the 
machinery  is  adapted  to  do,  and 
how  well  adapted;  but  also  let 
him  study  the  history  of  its  con- 
struction, and  trace  if  he  can,  or 
rather  fail,  if  he  can,  to  trace 
the  evidences  of  design  and  con- 
cert of  action  among  its  chief 
architects  from  the  beginning. 

The  new  year  of  1854  found 
slavery  excluded  from  more  than 
half  the  States  by  State  consti- 
tutions, and  from  most  of  the 
national  territory  by  congres- 
sional   prohibition.      Four   days 


42         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

later  commenced  the  struggle 
which  ended  in  repealing  that 
congressional  prohibition.  This 
opened  all  the  national  territory 
to  slavery,  and  was  the  first 
point  gained. 

But,  so  far,  Congress  only 
had  acted;  and  an  indorsement 
by  the  people,  real  or  apparent, 
was  indispensable,  to  save  the 
point  already  gained  and  give 
chance  for  more. 

This  necessity  had  not  been 
overlooked,  but  had  been  pro- 
vided for,  as  well  as  might  be, 
in  the  notable  argument  of 
"  squatter  sovereignty,"  other- 
wise called  "  sacred  right  of 
self-government,"  which  latter 
phrase,  through  expressive  of 
the  only  rightful  basis  of  any 
government,  was  so  perverted 
in  this  attempted  use  of  it  as  to 
amount  to  just  this :  That  if  any 


SPEECH  43 

one  man  choose  to  enslave 
another,  no  third  man  shall  be 
allowed  to  object.  That  argu- 
ment was  incorporated  into  the 
Nebraska  bill  itself,  in  the  lan- 
guage which  follows : 


( < 


It  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning 
of  this  Act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any 
Territory  or  State,  nor  to  exclude  it  there- 
from, but  to  leave  the  people  thereof  per- 
fectly free  to  form  and  regulate  their 
domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  sub- 
ject only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States." 

Then  opened  the  roar  of  loose 
declamation  in  favor  of  "  squat- 
ter sovereignty,"  and  "  sacred 
right  of  self-government." 
"  But,"  said  opposition  mem- 
bers, "  let  us  amend  the  bill  so 
as  to  expressly  declare  that  the 
people  of  the  Territory  may 
exclude  slavery."  "  Not  we," 
said  the  friends  of  the  measure, 


44         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

and  down  they  voted  the  amend- 
ment. 

While  the  Nebraska  bill  was 
passing  through  Congress,  a  law 
case,  involving  the  question  of  a 
negro's  freedom,  by  reason  of 
his  owner  having  voluntarily 
taken  him  first  into  a  free  State, 
and  then  into  a  Territory  cov- 
ered by  the  congressional  pro- 
hibition, and  held  him  as  a  slave 
for  a  long  time  in  each,  was  pass- 
ing through  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court  for  the  District  of 
Missouri;  and  both  Nebraska 
bill  and  lawsuit  were  brought  to 
a  decision  in  the  same  month  of 
May,  1854.  The  negro's  name 
was  "  Dred  Scott,"  which  name 
now  designates  the  decision 
finally  made  in  the  case.  Before 
the  then  next  Presidential  elec- 
tion, the  law  case  came  to,  and 
was    argued    in,    the    Supreme 


SPEECH  45 

Court  of  the  United  States;  but 
the  decision  of  it  was  deferred 
until  after  the  election.  Still, 
before  the  election,  Senator 
Trumbull,  on  the  floor  of  the 
Senate,  requested  the  leading  ad- 
vocate of  the  Nebraska  bill  to 
state  his  opinion  whether  the 
people  of  a  Territory  can  con- 
stitutionally exclude  slavery 
from  their  limits;  and  the  latter 
answered:  "That  is  a  question 
for  the  Supreme  Court." 

The  election  came.  Mr. 
Buchanan  was  elected,  and  the 
indorsement,  such  as  it  was,  se- 
cured. That  was  the  second 
point  gained.  The  indorse- 
ment, however,  fell  short  of  a 
clear  popular  majority  by  nearly 
four  hundred  thousand  votes, 
and  so,  perhaps,  was  not  over- 
whelmingly reliable  and  satisfac- 
tory.    The  outgoing  President, 


46         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

in  his  last  annual  message,  as 
impressively  as  possible  echoed 
back  upon  the  people  the  weight 
and  authority  of  the  indorse- 
ment. The  Supreme  Court  met 
again;  did  not  announce  their 
decision,  but  ordered  a  re- 
argument.  The  presidential  in- 
auguration came,  and  still  no 
decision  of  the  court;  but  the 
incoming  President,  in  his  inau- 
gural address,  fervently  ex- 
horted the  people  to  abide  by  the 
forthcoming  decision,  whatever 
it  might  be.  Then,  in  a  few 
days,  came  the  decision. 

The  reputed  author  of  the 
Nebraska  bill  finds  an  early  occa- 
sion to  make  a  speech  at  this 
capital  indorsing  the  Dred  Scott 
decision,  and  vehemently  de- 
nouncing all  opposition  to  it. 
The  new  President,  too,  seizes 
the  early  occasion  of  the  Silli- 


SPEECH  47 

man  letter  to  indorse  and 
strongly  construe  that  decision, 
and  to  express  his  astonishment 
that  any  different  view  had  ever 
been  entertained ! 

At  length  a  squabble  springs 
up  between  the  President  and 
the  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill 
on  the  mere  question  of  fact, 
whether  the  Lecompton  consti- 
tution was  or  was  not  in  any  just 
sense  made  by  the  people  of  Kan- 
sas; and  in  that  quarrel  the  lat- 
ter declares  that  all  he  wants  is 
a  fair  vote  for  the  people,  and 
that  he  cares  not  whether  slavery 
be  voted  down  or  voted  np.  I 
do  not  understand  his  declara- 
tion, that  he  cares  not  whether 
slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted 
up,  to  be  intended  by  him  other 
than  as  an  apt  definition  of  the 
policy  he  would  impress  upon 
the   public   mind — the   principle 


48         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

for  which  he  declares  he  has  suf- 
fered so  much,  and  is  ready  to 
suffer  to  the  end.  And  well  may 
he  cling  to  that  principle!  If 
he  has  any  parental  feeling,  well 
may  he  cling  to  it.  That  prin- 
ciple is  the  only  shred  left  of 
his  original  Nebraska  doctrine. 
Under  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
11  squatter  sovereignty  "  squatted 
out  of  existence,  tumbled  down 
like  temporary  scaffolding;  like 
the  mold  at  the  foundry,  served 
through  one  blast,  and  fell  back 
into  loose  sand;  helped  to  carry 
an  election,  and  then  was  kicked 
to  the  winds.  His  late  joint 
struggle  with  the  Republicans, 
against  the  Lecompton  consti- 
tution, involves  nothing  of  the 
original  Nebraska  doctrine. 
That  struggle  was  made  on  a 
point — the  right  of  a  people  to 
make   their   own   constitution — 


SPEECH  49 

upon  which  he  and  the  Repub- 
licans have  never  differed. 

The  several  points  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  in  connection 
with  Senator  Douglas's  "  care- 
not  "  policy,  constitute  the  piece 
of  machinery,  in  its  present  state 
of  advancement.  This  was  the 
third  point  gained.  The  work- 
ing points  of  that  machinery 
are: 

First,  That  no  negro  slave, 
imported  as  such  from  Africa, 
and  no  descendant  of  such  slave, 
can  ever  be  a  citizen  of  any  State, 
in  the  sense  of  that  term  as  used 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  This  point  is  made  in 
order  to  deprive  the  negro,  in 
every  possible  event,  of  the  bene- 
fit of  that  provision  of  the 
United  States  Constitution 
which  declares  that  "  The  citi- 
zens of  each  State  shall  be  en- 


50         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

titled  to  all  the  privileges  and 
immunities  of  citizens  in  the 
several  States." 

Secondly,  That,  "  subject  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,"  neither  Congress  nor  a 
Territorial  Legislature  can  ex- 
clude slavery  from  any  United 
States  Territory.  This  point  is 
made  in  order  that  individual 
men  may  fill  up  the  Territories 
with  slaves,  without  danger  of 
losing  them  as  property,  and 
thus  enhance  the  chances  of 
permanency  to  the  institution 
through  all  the  future. 

Thirdly,  That  whether  the 
holding  a  negro  in  actual  slavery 
in  a  free  State,  makes  him  free, 
as  against  the  holder,  the  United 
States  courts  will  not  decide,  but 
will  leave  to  be  decided  by  the 
courts  of  any  slave  State  the 
negro  may  be  forced  into  by  the 


SPEECH  51 

master.  This  point  is  made, 
not  to  be  pressed  immediately; 
but,  if  acquiesced  in  for  a  while, 
and  apparently  indorsed  by  the 
people  at  an  election,  then  to  sus- 
tain the  logical  conclusion  that 
what  Dred  Scott's  master  might 
lawfully  do  with  Dred  Scott  in 
the  free  State  of  Illinois,  every 
other  master  might  lawfully  do 
with  any  other  one,  or  one  thou- 
sand slaves,  in  Illinois,  or  in  any 
other  free  State. 

Auxiliary  to  all  this,  and 
working  hand-in-hand  with  it, 
the  Nebraska  doctrine,  or  what 
is  left  of  it,  is  to  educate  and 
mold  public  opinion,  at  least 
Northern  public  opinion,  not  to 
care  whether  slavery  is  voted 
down  or  voted  up.  This  shows 
exactly  where  we  now  are;  and 
partially,  also,  whither  we  are 
tending. 


52         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

It  will  throw  additional  light 
on  the  latter  to  go  back  and  run 
the  mind  over  the  string  of 
historical  facts  already  stated. 
Several  things  will  now  appear 
less  dark  and  mysterious  than 
they  did  when  they  were  trans- 
piring. The  people  were  to  be 
left  "  perfectly  free,"  "  subject 
only  to  the  Constitution."  What 
the  Constitution  had  to  do  with 
it,  outsiders  could  not  then  see. 
Plainly  enough  now,  it  was  an 
exactly  fitted  niche,  for  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  to  afterwards  come 
in,  and  declare  the  perfect  free- 
dom of  the  people  to  be  just  no 
freedom  at  all.  Why  was  the 
amendment,  expressly  declaring 
the  right  of  the  people,  voted 
down?  Plainly  enough  now, 
the  adoption  of  it  would  have 
spoiled  the  niche  for  the  Dred 
Scott    decision.     Why   was    the 


SPEECH  $3 

court  decision  held  up?  Why- 
even  a  senator's  individual  opin- 
ion withheld  till  after  the  presi- 
dential election  ?  Plainly  enough 
now,  the  speaking  out  then 
would  have  damaged  the  "  per- 
fectly free "  argument  upon 
which  the  election  was  to  be  car- 
ried. Why  the  outgoing  Presi- 
dent's felicitation  on  the  indorse- 
ment? Why  the  delay  of  a  re- 
argument?  Why  the  incoming 
President's  advance  exhortation 
in  favor  of  the  decision?  These 
things  look  like  the  cautious  pat- 
ting and  petting  of  a  spirited 
horse  preparatory  to  mounting 
him,  when  it  is  dreaded  that  he 
may  give  the  rider  a  fall.  And 
why  the  hasty  after-indorsement 
of  the  decision  by  the  President 
and  others? 

We   cannot   absolutely   know 
that  all  these  exact  adaptations 


54         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

are  the  result  of  preconcert. 
But  when  we  see  a  lot  of  framed 
timbers,  different  portions  of 
which  we  know  have  been  gotten 
out  at  different  times  and  places 
and  by  different  workmen — 
Stephen,  Franklin,  Roger,  and 
James,  for  instance, — and  when 
we  see  these  timbers  joined 
together,  and  see  they  exactly 
make  the  frame  of  a  house  or  a 
mill,  all  the  tenons  and  mortises 
exactly  fitting,  and  all  the  lengths 
and  proportions  of  the  different 
pieces  exactly  adapted  to  their 
respective  places,  and  not  a 
piece  too  many  or  too  few,  not 
omitting  even  scaffolding — or, 
if  a  single  piece  be  lacking,  we 
see  the  place  in  the  frame  exactly 
fitted  and  prepared  yet  to  bring 
such  piece  in — in  such  case,  we 
find  it  impossible  not  to  believe 
that  Stephen  and  Franklin  and 


SPEECH  55 

Roger  and  James  all  understood 
one  another  from  the  beginning, 
and  all  worked  upon  a  common 
plan  or  draught  drawn  up  before 
the  first  blow  was  struck. 

It  should  not  be  overlooked 
that,  by  the  Nebraska  bill,  the 
people  of  a  State  as  well  as  Ter- 
ritory were  to  be  left  "  perfect- 
ly free,"  "  subject  only  to  the 
Constitution."  Why  mention  a 
State?  They  were  legislating 
for  Territories,  and  not  for  or 
about  States.  Certainly  the  peo- 
ple of  a  State  are  and  ought  to 
be  subject  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States;  but  why  is 
mention  of  this  lugged  into  this 
merely  territorial  law?  Why 
are  the  people  of  a  Territory 
and  the  people  of  a  State  therein 
lumped  together,  and  their  rela- 
tion to  the  Constitution  therein 
treated    as    being   precisely    the 


$6         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

same?  While  the  opinion  of 
the  court  by  Chief  Justice 
Taney,  in  the  Dred  Scott  case, 
and  the  separate  opinions  of  all 
concurring  judges,  expressly  de- 
clare that  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  neither  permits 
Congress  nor  a  territorial  Leg- 
islature to  exclude  slavery  from 
any  United  States  Territory, 
they  all  omit  to  declare  whether 
or  not  the  same  Constitution  per- 
mits a  State,  or  the  people  of  a 
State,  to  exclude  it.  Possibly, 
this  is  a  mere  omission;  but  who 
can  be  quite  sure,  if  McLean  or 
Curtis  had  sought  to  get  into  the 
opinion  a  declaration  of  unlim- 
ited power  in  the  people  of  a 
State  to  exclude  slavery  from 
their  limits,  just  as  Chase  and 
Mace  sought  to  get  such  decla- 
ration, in  behalf  of  the  people  of 
a  Territory,  into  the  Nebraska 


SPEECH  57 

bill — I  ask,  who  can  be  quite 
sure  that  it  would  not  have  been 
voted  down  in  one  case  as  it  had 
been  in  the  other? 

The  nearest  approach  to  the 
point  of  declaring  the  power  of 
a  State  over  slavery  is  made  by 
Judge  Nelson.  He  approaches 
it  more  than  once,  using  the  pre- 
cise idea,  and  almost  the  lan- 
guage, too,  of  the  Nebraska  act. 
On  one  occasion,  his  exact  lan- 
guage is :  "  Except  in  cases  where 
the  power  is  restrained  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  the  law  of  the  State  is 
supreme  over  the  subject  of  slav- 
ery within  its  jurisdiction."  In 
what  cases  the  power  of  the 
States  is  so  restrained  by  the 
United  States  Constitution  is 
left  an  open  question,  precisely 
as  the  same  question,  as  to  the 
restraint   on   the  power  of  the 


58         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Territories,  was  left  open  in  the 
Nebraska  act.  Put  this  and 
that  together,  and  we  have 
another  nice  little  niche,  which 
we  may,  ere  long,  see  filled  with 
another  Supreme  Court  decision, 
declaring  that  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  does  not 
permit  a  State  to  exclude  slav- 
ery from  its  limits.  And  this 
may  especially  be  expected  if  the 
doctrine  of  "  care  not  whether 
slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted 
up  "  shall  gain  upon  the  public 
mind  sufficiently  to  give  promise 
that  such  a  decision  can  be  main- 
tained when  made. 

Such  a  decision  is  all  that  slav- 
ery now  lacks  of  being  alike  law- 
ful in  all  the  States.  Welcome, 
or  unwelcome,  such  decision  is 
probably  coming,  and  will  soon 
be  upon  us,  unless  the  power  of 
the  present  political  dynasty  shall 


SPEECH 


59 


be  met  and  overthrown.  We 
shall  lie  down  pleasantly  dream- 
ing that  the  people  of  Missouri 
are  on  the  verge  of  making  their 
State  free,  and  we  shall  awake 
to  the  reality  instead  that  the 
Supreme  Court  has  made  Illinois 
a  slave  State.  To  meet  and 
overthrow  the  power  of  that 
dynasty  is  the  work  now  before 
all  those  who  would  prevent  that 
consummation.  That  is  what 
we  have  to  do.  How  can  we 
best  do  it? 

There  are  those  who  denounce 
us  openly  to  their  own  friends, 
and  yet  whisper  us  softly  that 
Senator  Douglas  is  the  aptest  in- 
strument there  is  with  which  to 
effect  that  object.  They  wish 
us  to  infer  all,  from  the  fact  that 
he  now  has  a  little  quarrel  with 
the  present  head  of  the  dynasty, 
and  that  he  has  regularly  voted 


60         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

with  us  on  a  single  point,  upon 
which  he  and  we  have  never  dif- 
fered. They  remind  us  that  he 
is  a  great  man,  and  that  the  larg- 
est of  us  are  very  small  ones. 
Let  this  be  granted.  But  "  a 
living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead 
lion."  Judge  Douglas,  if  not  a 
dead  lion,  for  this  work  is  at 
least  a  caged  and  toothless  one. 
How  can  he  oppose  the  advances 
of  slavery?  He  don't  care  any- 
thing about  it.  His  avowed 
mission  is  impressing  the  "  pub- 
lic heart  "  to  care  nothing  about 
it.  A  leading  Douglas  Demo- 
cratic newspaper  thinks  Doug- 
las's superior  talent  will  be 
needed  to  resist  the  revival  of 
the  African  slave-trade.  Does 
Douglas  believe  an  effort  to  re- 
vive that  trade  is  approaching? 
He  has  not  said  so.  Does  he 
really  think  so?     But  if  it   is, 


SPEECH  6l 

how  can  he  resist  it?  For  years 
he  has  labored  to  prove  it  a  sa- 
cred right  of  white  men  to  take 
negro  slaves  into  the  new  Ter- 
ritories. Can  he  possibly  show 
that  it  is  less  a  sacred  right  to 
buy  them  where  they  can  be 
bought  cheapest?  And  unques- 
tionably they  can  be  bought 
cheaper  in  Africa  than  in  Vir- 
ginia. He  has  done  all  in  his 
power  to  reduce  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  slavery  to  one  of  a  mere 
right  of  property;  and,  as  such, 
how  can  he  oppose  the  foreign 
slave-trade?  How  can  he  re- 
fuse that  trade  in  that  "  prop- 
erty "  shall  be  "  perfectly  free/' 
unless  he  does  it  as  a  protection 
to  the  home  production?  And 
as  the  home  producers  will  prob- 
ably not  ask  the  protection,  he 
will  be  wholly  without  a  ground 
of  opposition. 


62         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Senator  Douglas  holds,  we 
know,  that  a  man  may  rightfully 
be  wiser  to-day  than  he  was  yes- 
terday; that  he  may  rightfully 
change  when  he  finds  himself 
wrong.  But  can  we,  for  that 
reason,  run  ahead,  and  infer  that 
he  will  make  any  particular 
change  of  which  he  himself  has 
given  no  intimation?  Can  we 
safely  base  our  action  upon  any 
such  vague  inference?  Now, 
as  ever,  I  wish  not  to  misrepre- 
sent Judge  Douglas's  position, 
question  his  motives,  or  do  aught 
that  can  be  personally  offensive 
to  him.  Whenever,  if  ever,  he 
and  we  can  come  together  on 
principle,  so  that  our  great  cause 
may  have  assistance  from  his 
great  ability,  I  hope  to  have  in- 
terposed no  adventitious  ob- 
stacle. But  clearly  he  is  not 
now  with  us ;  he  does  not  pretend 


SPEECH  63 

to  be — he  does  not  promise  ever 
to  be. 

Our  cause,  then,  must  be  en- 
trusted to,  and  conducted  by,  its 
own  undoubted  friends — those 
whose  hands  are  free,  whose 
hearts  are  in  the  work,  who  do 
care  for  the  result.  Two  years 
ago  the  Republicans  of  the  na- 
tion mustered  over  thirteen  hun- 
dred thousand  strong.  We  did 
this  under  the  single  impulse  of 
resistance  to  a  common  danger, 
with  every  external  circumstance 
against  us.  Of  strange,  discord- 
ant, and  even  hostile  elements,  we 
gathered  from  the  four  winds, 
and  formed  and  fought  the  battle 
through,  under  the  constant  hot 
fire  of  a  disciplined,  proud,  and 
pampered  enemy.  Did  we 
brave  all  then,  to  falter  now — 
now,  when  that  same  enemy  is 
wavering,  dissevered,  and  bellig- 


64         ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

erent?  The  result  is  not  doubt- 
ful. We  shall  not  fail — if  we 
stand  firm,  we  shall  not  fail. 
Wise  counsels  may  accelerate,  or 
mistakes  delay  it;  but,  sooner  or 
later,  the  victory  is  sure  to  come. 


A  Word  About  the  Writ- 
ings of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  contents  of  this  little  vol- 
ume are  selected  from  "  The 
Complete  Writings  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,"  edited  by  his  private 
secretaries,  John  G.  Nicolay  and 
John  Hay,  a  new  and  enlarged 
edition  of  which  is  now  being 
issued  by  the  publishers  of  this 
volume. 

For  nearly  thirty  years  the 
editors  were  engaged  in  collect- 
ing and  arranging  the  material 
for  this  work.  President  Lin- 
coln encouraged  and  assisted 
them,  giving  them  many  of  his 
most  precious  manuscripts  with 
his  own  hands.  The  work  was 
finally  published  at  the  special 

6s 


66         ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

request  of  Col.  Robert  T.  Lin- 
coln, and  must  ever  remain  the 
only  authorized  and  standard 
collection  of  Lincoln's  writings. 
The  new  and  enlarged  edition 
contains  nearly  twice  as  much 
material  as  did  the  first  edition 
published  some  eleven  years  ago. 
This  added  material  comprises 
everything  of  any  historical  or 
biographical  value  from  the  pen 
of  Lincoln  which  has  come  to 
light  during  the  last  decade, 
also  numerous  biographical  and 
explanatory  notes,  and  special 
introductions  to  the  various  vol- 
umes. It  will  also  contain  a 
complete  bibliography  and  a 
comprehensive  index. 

It  will  be  artistically  printed 
on  a  fine  grade  of  paper,  durably 
bound,  and  illustrated  with  up- 
ward of  one  hundred  portraits 
of  Lincoln,  his  generals,  cabinet 


WRITINGS  67 

officers,  and  facsimiles  of  his 
more  celebrated  letters  and  docu- 
ments. In  short,  nothing  has 
been  omitted  which  could  in  any 
way  add  to  its  value  from  a  lit- 
erary or  mechanical  standpoint. 
The  aim  has  been  to  present 
this  definitive  edition  of  Lin- 
coln's writings  in  a  style  that  will 
make  it  a  fitting  monument  to 
its  illustrious  author  and  scarcely 
less  illustrious  editors. 


Francis  D.  Tandy  Company, 

38  E.  2 1st  St.,  New  York. 


I 


Autobiography 
By  Lincoln  in 


Will 
Void 
iself 


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new  in  Menard  County.  <k  m 
n^Ined  a  year  as  a  sort  o  Ha 
ptorc.    Then   came   t        r  captain  of      J 

war,  artfl  I  QwassucecesB  which  gave  me 
volunteers,  a   succe«»  nave  haa 

,  more  pleasure  than  any  mpaign,      g^' 

J  Snce.PI    went    T  gj  Legislatvue      fef 
M  was  elected,   ran   i< was  beaten 
!    the  same    ye ar  (183 5»  a*  ^  b     *,„ 
J  -only  time  I .have  e  6Uc-     n*j 

.^-^S^e   period  J    W 

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a  of  Congress— w as  not  botn 

□  re-election.    From .18 49  ™  more     ,, 

a1  ie.Li,:P     practiced    »v  f„«-alwavs     i. 


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re-election.    From!  849  x  o  more     h| 

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t  the    Whig    sectoral    t  losing   m- 

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P  anratfwM  I  P<»  P«os  *  "       H 


